Thread: 19" Maxxis AT Tyres

Have you looked at Bridgestone or Toyo ATs? The Bridgies have a good reputation. My BIL has just fitted the Toyos to his 80 and seems happy with them. Just a thought...

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Have you looked at Bridgestone or Toyo ATs? The Bridgies have a good reputation. My BIL has just fitted the Toyos to his 80 and seems happy with them. Just a thought...

Bridgestone and Toyo only do HT tyres in 255/55R19, no AT yet

Originally Posted by Ben_Vapid

The General Grabber 19" and the Cooper LTZ both have the same load rating so if the you've been steered away from one I assume it's going to be the same story on the other.

I'm a week or two away from changing over and i'm thinking the coopers are the best for me as they look a touch more aggressive than the generals while still being great on bitumen where realistically my car still does 95% of it's driving.

I've been running LTZs for about 15 months, 2 developed tennis ball size bulges in side wall after 8 months and were replaced as there was no obvious impact damage and it was put down as just defective, it happens. I've now destroyed two more both from side wall impact damage and this was reminiscent of my experience with BFG ATs and their soft sidewalls. Don't get me wrong the LTZ aren't a bad tyre, just weak in the side wall. They handle well aren't too noisy and appear to be wearing very well. I'm watching this Maxxis thread with interest as I can see me swapping the Coopers over to something with stronger walls.

The 19" LTZs haven't enjoyed the same generally good feed-back as the 20" higher load-rated versions, with plenty of sidewalls destroyed even though some people haven't had any such problems.

Today for the 10th time this year they shut the freeway down between Perth CBD and the suburbs for some inane jogging, bicycling, or dog-walking for this week's favourite minority event, and as usual I am one of the last people to learn of this. Being an idiot, I cannot seem to learn to stop assuming the freeway out of the city is still a road for cars and not a footpath or bicycle path. I cannot learn to check the main roads website every time I go across town to see if I have been granted permission to drive on the main arterial route for the whole city or whether some mob of numpties are not using it for a swap meet or something.

So there I was stuck in a gridlock when I looked across the median strip and saw no cars coming the other way. A means of escape had presented itself to me and I grabbed it. I made a big u-ey up over the curb over the median strip and got out of there.

And here is the thing, it so happens I have experience in mounting curbs in the OEM Wranglers as I do so quite often to get onto a grass strip outside a mate's place. With the OEMs I crawled over the curb very carefully and noticed how the tyre and 19" rims handled the challenge. Not very well, actually. I felt the sidewall "collapsing" almost to the rim on the corner of the curb, and it gave one the distinct impression that out on a camping trip I would be spending a lot of time babying the tyres and rims.

Meanwhile back at the gridlock I wanted to make a highly illegal maneuver up a steep curb without wasting too much time. The tyres felt completely different to the OEMs, it was smooth and straightforward and not at all like I had come to expect. The car felt for the first time the weak point was not as weak as it had been.

I think we can agree that as an off-road test of Maxxis 980s in 19" it gets a one out of ten, but nonetheless the tyres passed with flying colours. I'm liking them.

Originally Posted by LRD414

Why not the Maxxis Ben? Not much track record yet but I would give them a go if I was still on 19s.

Scott

They definitely look the pick, but what's making me hesitate is 1) road noise, and 2) being Melbourne based and having to deal with wet tarmac in traffic a lot, i'm in two minds about if they're going to be a bit dicey in the wet.

I'm still keen to be convinced otherwise.

James I live in the country and I knew of the freeway closures today
Only because I was up there yesterday and heard it on the wireless and saw the fwy notice boards
Andrew

Originally Posted by JamesH

I think we can agree that as an off-road test of Maxxis 980s in 19" it gets a one out of ten, but nonetheless the tyres passed with flying colours. I'm liking them.

I know that the couple times that I have had to drive up the gutter (and once got to observe from outside the car) with the Hankooks, I know that they flex so much that it looks like the only thing between the alloys and the concrete is 2 layers of rubber with no air gap. This is one of the reasons I am interested in strong sidewalls.